Brandon Wood (center), with the Texas Commission on Jail Standards, watched a safety test in August at the jails. The next annual inspection is four months away, and jail officials this year have to worry about crowded conditions.

When the Dallas County jails failed inspection for the seventh
time last year, consultants brought in to fix the problem
encountered a stressed-out and overworked Sheriff's Department with
a culture that resisted change and failed to hold its employees
responsible for repeated problems, according to reports.

Carl R. Griffith and Associates, the Port Arthur-based firm
hired by county commissioners, detailed such challenges in status
reports to county officials while it helped Sheriff Lupe Valdez to
beef up jail staffing and to finally pass inspection in August.

However, with the next annual jail inspection just four months
away, the consultants are busy heading off a new crisis - jail
crowding - that threatens to derail the county jails'
certification.

Valdez dismisses some of the consultants' findings, saying the
firm merely validated what her agency already knew in many
cases.

The jail population has grown by about 1,000 inmates this year
despite falling crime rates and fewer people being booked into the
jails. The consultants say the county's criminal justice system is
prosecuting inmates much slower than it was only a year
earlier.

When the jails failed inspection in March 2009, it came as a
blow to county commissioners. They had authorized more than $170
million in improvements, including a new jail tower, in an attempt
to fix inadequate staffing, poor sanitation and maintenance, and
faulty fire-safety systems.

Two months later, the commissioners sought outside help. They
signed a contract with Griffith, who served as Jefferson County's
sheriff for eight years and its county judge for a decade. The firm
has been paid $537,494 through August 2010, records show.

One of the firm's first assessments was that the Sheriff's
Department did not hold employees responsible for problems that
persisted. Some inside the agency agreed.

For example, reports issued by Valdez's jail-inspection teams
did not say who wrote them. They also didn't say who should be
doing which maintenance tasks and when. And it was unclear whether
the tasks were ultimately done.

"If there is no author it is unlikely there will be
accountability," a Griffith report said.

The consultants recommended in-house inspections, regular
meetings to address problems, detailed reports citing all
violations and fixes, as well as a system for identifying people in
charge who would certify in writing that proper staffing was in
place for all shifts.

Supervisors should be held personally responsible for making
sure all people are where they should be. If not, they should be
held accountable with discipline, remedial training or poor
performance appraisals, according to the firm's
recommendations.

Valdez said that her agency did hold employees responsible and
that accountability was "raised once the needed resources were
identified and provided."

The Griffith firm, which had experience dealing with the Texas
Commission on Jail Standards, told county officials the state
wanted more than excuses for recurring problems.

"We have seen a significant effort to simply explain what
happened as though the explanation solves the problem," consultant
Richard Kirkland wrote in a letter to county staff.

State jail regulators, the consultants said, told them they
didn't think jail staff were "committed or able to resolve these
problems over the long term."

Around this time, roughly mid-2009, the commissioners replaced
their longtime fire marshal and their maintenance director. Darryl
Martin, who had just been hired to replace the retired county
administrator, recommended the personnel changes.

"There were areas we continued to fail on, and we still had the
same people in place," Martin said.

Resistance

As Griffith and his consultants tried to gather data from the
Sheriff's Department to fix the staffing problem, they reported
running into strong resistance from officials who were defensive
and resentful of the intrusion.

They could not get the data they needed fast enough.

"They don't seem to have the same sense of urgency that we like
to operate with," Kirkland wrote.

Valdez said there is always initial resistance whenever an
outside agency is brought in to study an organization's operations.
She said it was "quickly resolved with open communication and
teamwork."

The state requires one guard to supervise every 48 inmates.
Despite spending millions in overtime, the sheriff could not keep
up. As a result, the county was spending too much money on overtime
and contributing to burnout among officers, the consultants
concluded.

They quickly discovered the problem: The jails were fully
staffed on paper, but the sheriff had problems filling shifts
because of unplanned absences.

"Our review of the Sheriff's Office indicates a stressed and
overworked agency that does not appear to have the time or the
'system' to address these issues," the consultants wrote in a
status report.

Griffith devised a more accurate staffing plan and then
recommended more jail guard positions to help plug the holes, which
commissioners approved. Valdez said that her agency had already
identified the need for more officers and that Griffith "validated
our findings."

The consultants had high praise for Commissioner John Wiley
Price, who they said helped them change the culture of the
Sheriff's Department, which viewed the jail system as a series of
separate lock-ups, rather than one institution. Price prodded jail
staff to view the system as one jail and to work together.

With the new one-jail philosophy, sheriff's officials could
follow a Griffith recommendation of borrowing guards from one jail
to fill vacancies in another.

"That was and is essential to changing the culture," Kirkland
wrote.

Valdez said the consultants "supported our recommendation for
the one-jail concept."

Price takes charge

After about three months on the job, the consultants were still
running into pockets of resistance even though they praised Price
for taking charge and showing strong leadership. At least one of
Valdez's captains scoffed at new ideas during a meeting, saying
"We're too big to do those things."

But Kirkland said he saw Valdez make it clear to her staff last
year that there would be changes. He said she "clearly put her foot
down."

Still, resistance to change within the Sheriff's Department was
still evident as recently as April 2010, according to the
consultants.

Frequent turnover in command positions was not helping matters,
they said. One captain was moved four times in seven months, the
consultants said. Such moves, they wrote, create a "severely
weakened command and accountability continuum."

In March, Valdez replaced her top jail commander with an
assistant chief deputy, Marlin Suell. The consultants initially
were concerned, but ultimately concluded that Suell "gets it." But
even Suell ran into resistance that threatened to undermine his
efforts, according to Griffith's reports.

Valdez said change, although difficult initially, is needed to
make sure the right people are in the right positions.

Price said he wasn't worried about the reluctance of some to
cooperate. He blamed it on an entrenched "good ol' boy" system
within the agency.

"Anytime you have folks coming in from the outside, you'll have
people who have some trepidation," he said. "She's had to move some
people around. I think she's comfortable with personnel in place
now."